‘If the people will let them,’ she added grimly.
She went to the aunts and said: ‘Louis thinks you should not be forced to stay here if you wish to go.’
Adelaide’s eyes lighted up. ‘Is it possible?’
‘You could try,’ said Antoinette.
‘When could we do this?’
‘Very soon. The Comte de Fersen will arrange everything for you.’
Adelaide did not look at the Queen. She was remembering all the scandal she had helped to circulate about Antoinette and the Swede.
Victoire too was remembering.
‘I never thought,’ said Adelaide, ‘that I should be so happy at the thought of leaving France.’
‘Nor I,’ cried Victoire, and they both began to weep.
Antoinette put her arms about them.
‘You forget … so easily,’ said Adelaide.
Antoinette knew what they meant.
‘When there is little joy in remembering, it is better to forget,’ she said.
‘You are so changed …’ stammered Adelaide. ‘We are so changed.’
‘Life changes us all,’ said the Queen.
‘If …’
But Antoinette would hear no more of their remorse. It was enough that they felt it, and she was ready to be their friend.
So the carriages were in the courtyard, and the mob saw them and began to clamour round them.
‘What is this?’ they demanded. ‘Who goes away?’
The two old ladies came out into the courtyard with a few of their servants, and Victoire kept close to Adelaide as they climbed into the carriages.
‘Shall we let them go?’ cried a voice in the crowd.
There was no answer; and during the lull the coachman whipped up his horses and drove away.
The people continued to stand about in the Tuileries. ‘This is the beginning,’ they declared. ‘Go after the Mesdames! Bring them back to Paris.’
But the carriages were already on their way out of the city, and Victoire and Adelaide held each other’s hands tightly, fearfully, as they rode, saying nothing.
The crowd stopped them at Fontainebleau.
‘What coach is this? What does it contain? Emigrées! Let us take a look at them.’
Ugly faces peered at the two frightened old ladies.
‘Who are these?’ it was asked. ‘They are not Antoinette and her family. That’s clear.’
And while the old ladies shivered, the people of Fontainebleau decided to let them pass as they were such old ladies and could certainly not be the Queen disguised.
On they went through Burgundy, and again there was a halt, when they must leave the carriages, and be taken before the Commune while it was discussed whether or not Les Mesdames should be allowed to leave the country.
What wretchedness they lived through during those hours of indecision! They did not speak to each other; but Adelaide saw in Victoire’s eyes that question, that fear: ‘Did we, in our malice, help to bring ourselves to this pass?’
Adelaide believed then that she would never again dominate Victoire, for Victoire had seen her stripped of her sisterly authority, Victoire had doubted the wisdom of her malice; they were two sisters now, shorn of royalty, shorn of everything but the relationship between them, two frightened old ladies.
‘Let them go,’ said the Burgundians. ‘They can do little harm.’
So on went Adelaide and Victoire, to Rome and to Naples where the sister of the Queen whom they had so fiercely hated received them with affection and the ceremony due to their rank.
Adelaide and Victoire were safe; and there they stayed as guests of Maria Carolina, Queen of Naples and sister to Antoinette.
And to Maria Carolina they talked of the sadness of Antoinette, of the courage of Antoinette, and how they had good reason to love her.
Orléans made good use of his time in London.
A year or so after her imprisonment, Jeanne de Lamotte had escaped from the Salpêtrière. She had good reason to believe that the Duc d’Orléans might have had some hand in that escape. Clothes had been smuggled in to her and, with the kindly help of the guards and sentries who, it seemed, had been paid well to look the other way, she slipped out of her prison and made her way to the Seine where a boat was waiting to take her out of the city. She at length reached the frontier and journeyed through the Netherlands to London.
There she joined her husband. The sale of the diamonds had made them rich and, when it was discovered that she was that Jeanne de Lamotte-Valois who had played such a big part in the notorious case, she was welcome in several houses, for she had such amusing stories to tell of the Queen of France; and Jeanne told her stories, making them more and more outrageous with each telling; if ever she felt a little ashamed of her lies, she merely had to let her fingers touch the angry-looking V on her breast, and then she felt that nothing she could say would be too bad.
Now the Duc d’Orléans was seeking her out.
‘How would you like to return to France?’ he asked her.
‘Return to France!’ Jeanne firmly shook her head. ‘To the Salpêtrière?’
‘Certainly not to the Salpêtrière – to a house of your own where you could receive your friends.’
‘It would not be safe. I should not wish to suffer again what I have endured at the hands of those unjust rogues.’
‘You would not.’
‘But I escaped from prison, Monsieur le Duc. I was sentenced for life.’
‘Have you not heard, Madame, that the people have stormed the Bastille? Do you not know what they say now of Antoinette? No! You would run into no danger if you returned to Paris. I would give you an hôtel in the Place Vendôme.’
‘In exchange for what?’
The Duke took her by the chin and kissed her lightly.
‘All Paris would be interested in your little stories of Antoinette.’
Jeanne smiled.
‘There is no place like Paris,’ she said.
‘Then … return to your home. There is work for you to do.’
The Queen paced up and down her apartments.
‘Louis,’ she said, ‘how can we endure this life? We had a little respite at Saint-Cloud, and now we are back … back here in this dreary place. How much longer shall we remain prisoners here?’
Louis shook his head sadly.
‘We should seek help from outside,’ she cried. ‘There is my own country. Ah, if only Joseph were alive!’
Joseph had died recently, and her brother Leopold was now Emperor. Leopold had his own difficulties; they would not include fighting in his sister’s cause.
Antoinette’s plan was that the Austrian armies should march to the frontiers of France, and that Louis should muster as many men as he could and go to meet them; and that the might of Austria should show the French that Austria disapproved of the way in which they were treating their monarchs.
But there was no help coming from Austria.
Orléans had returned to Paris, and La Fayette was afraid to raise the matter of his exile, for fresh demonstrations were now occurring in the Palais Royal.
Moreover that criminal and jewel-thief, Madame de Lamotte, was now established in the Place Vendôme, and libel after libel poured out from her pen. There was a new story of the necklace – Madame de Lamotte’s version. No story was too vile to be attached to the Queen.
There was one man who was keeping the revolution at bay. This was Mirabeau. He was now using his considerable gifts to the limit and was serving both the National Assembly and the monarchy, deftly keeping the balance between them, working with his tremendous powers to weld the two together.
The King had offered to give him promissory notes to the value of a million livres, to be paid when Mirabeau had brought about that which he had set out to do. This was to bring the revolution to an end and place the King firmly on the throne. Mirabeau’s debts would be settled, and he would be left affluent. He was determined to earn the money and at the same time win for himself fame with posterity.